You know? You're right. Anyone with 2 pennies worth of common sense can see that if you are installing a mod that's gonna add nudity to a game, then any offense is of your creation. The game is a tool, a means to an end, and if you outlaw games that could create nudity, you might as well scratch crayons, paintbrushes, hell even ascii could be used to create nudity
They actually tried that whole stop selling subscriptions until we fix the servers thing when the game first came out.
But seriously, I'm not one to tell them how to fix the problem - true, but I do know things have not gotten better in the last year, they've tumbled worse. And when it comes down to it, they don't pay me to fix their computers, or even understand them. I pay them for a service they aren't delivering. That's the most aggrevating thing a company can do. It would be different if Blizzard would own up and institute a policy of "server's down, free day for all associated accounts". Which they do do sometimes. But not all the time, it's very inconsistent.
An interesting idea, but to each their own. Email's great when you don't need an immediate response, or when you know someone is in their office. Not so good when you are trying to track someone down for a question, but that's what cell phones are for, right?
Me personally I try to at least respond to an email asap, but I may not fill the person's request immediately. But everyone has their own service level standards, based on who your customer is and how many responsibilities you have. I think a good twist on your idea would be some kind of autoresponse, not in the form of email necessarily, that would allow you to set the expectations on a response to the email back to the sender, sort of like you can share your calendar in outlook. Something like the profile, but more simple, that indicates when you have access to email, or intend to respond to emails. I'm not exactly sure what form it would take, but that's why they pay the engineers the big bucks.
And wrist muscle too! Which is really most of table tennis too, but that gets world wide recognition...
And don't diss the hand muscle! That's the same one that opens the mayonaise/jelly/soda bottle when your wife can't - granting instant "my hero" points.
I buy my computers piece wise anyways. It's the best way to go if you know what you are looking for, and assembly is just a pasttime hobby of mine.
This will make it just slightly harder for businesses to use illegit copies of Windows (Which is what this all really boils down to) - the armchair software pirate will continue to rip off Microsoft, because their DRM is no more robust than the OS it was meant to protect.
I'm glad they are taking Microsoft to court. Because in all likelihood, Microsoft is going to hire the best lawyers there are, and kick the crapola out of Lucent. And then we'll have one more strike against companies generating these bogusly broad patents on technology.
Paying for additional content is kind of a new concept. Rather than charging an ambiguous 15/month for new content, they let the end user pick and choose what mods are worth what, by choosing their own downloads. I think this is a pretty cool idea, a shame it wouldn't really work out in the MMO world so much since everyone has to be playing the same game, where in a single player game it's ok for everyone to play something different.
I do kind of think $2.50 is steep for a particular armor model, but then again I look at the suggestion boards for a game like world of warcraft, where thousands of suggestions hit a board and most don't get implemented, maybe by creating a more capitalistic system, there will be a better balance between content demand and supply.
Thousands of auto accidents every day just waiting to turn into lawsuits against the carmageddon series!
Speeding ticket? "But sir, I was obsessed with Need for Speed!"
Caught in an act of terrorism? "I was just acting out something I'd seen in counter-strike!"
The judge in this case needs to slap a humongous "don't waste my time" court cost to these plantiffs, and to the lawyer that filed the case, and kick it out of court.
The Washington Post reported that the online porn business was worth $2.5bn a year, compared with just $1.1bn for music downloads.
There is a 2.5 billion dollar industry for assisted masturbation.
I'd say the effect on society is more people getting off. That's less wound up lunatics out there killing people because lets face it, no matter how bad your day, would you ever even consider killing someone after an orgasm?
Pr0n = less violence. We could use a lot more really...
Quoth the article - he did set up a website from which he does sell his guide.
I'm not promoting copyright infringement or anything here, but unless this guide included ways to exploit the game (that is, take advantage of bugs and such unfairly), Blizzard should have better things to do. They are always about how they need more time to set up servers, that they don't have the resources to run live events, and yet obviously they have people on their payroll doing nothing more than running around squashing a guy trying to make a buck or two. Glad to see where that 15/month from all the players is going to.
I might watch this, for the same reason I'd watch an auto race. Not for the game, not for the sport. I just want to see the crashes. Looking at the history of the elder scrolls series, I don't think I'd have to wait 12 hours...
I look at this kind of like I do Google News, which you can route to your Google homepage. It's a mock up. A first run. I don't expect it to be perfect. I tried google news for a while, and found the stories there weren't as interesting as what was feeding through CNN and slashdot. I turned it off. But given some time, maybe they will turn it around. I'm sure they didn't start out the top search engine either, but experience and persistence work wonders.
The only thing from Google I didn't like was their toolbar - and I specifically didn't like it because I found it was autopackaged into certain softwares as an opt out instead of an opt in. Meaning the default option was to install the toolbar, and the user had to take special measures not to install a potentially browser wrecking software.
I prefer my software like a salad bar - where I get to choose what goes on the plate, rather than someone else deciding a piece of lemon would make the dish look better.
But I digress. Grats to Google for entering a new market, I look forward to seeing what innovations they might bring!//end rant
I can't see blaming google for this. They collect the information they said they collect. If there's something criminal in one's emails, google has a right to protect itself by saving the proof rather than be acused of being an accomplice to the crime by helping delete it.
Death is bleh in WoW. You just run back and get your corpse.
Rather, give the big nasty about 1 million hit points, a 0 damage attack, and a special that breaks a random piece of armor or weapon. Let the bot sit there and fight it until all his weapons break, at which point he can haplessly level his unarmed skill to 300.
Sorry to say, but you've already lost all that time and money, you just no longer have control of a little virtual Lancelot/Illidan/Jackie Chan in a virtual world.
There is the good side of what you say - in being able to join any server you'll always have a place to play. There's the downside too - there's nothing to discourage griefers from showing up on a server, running aim-bots or other cheats, getting banned and shrugging it off just to go to another server.
"At the time of the ban I had configured my keyboard to switch weapons, cast hex of weakness and renew myself, all with the press of a button."
There exists a global cooldown of one second between most gameplay affecting actions in WoW, most certainly for casting these two spells hex of weakness and renew.
Therefore the only way you could have cast both with one button, is if the keyboard is interjecting a wait period, and issueing a keystroke to the game that you are not pressing after this wait period. Now in this case, that keystroke may only be a second after you pushed the button. But the issue is that you have, at this point, just barely crossed the line into botting. It has to be drawn somewhere, and to me this is where it makes the most sense: If you allow the keyboard to issue commands while you are not interacting with the hardware in anyway, you are botting.
Not saying this to be an ass, just to let you know what most likely Blizzard took issue with.
Rather than saying we're inflating time, which is kind of silly, let's say we're increasing the amount of currency faster than intended, or inflation of currency is taking place faster than intended. Now, having said that, what is intended? I didn't see anywhere Blizzard set out an intended inflation rate. Inflation is expected, but there's no Greenspan guy behind the scenes trying to curtail it I don't believe.
There is infinite money in an MMORPG. There is finite money in the real world. Once upon a time, 1 US dollar equated to 1 oz of gold. That's called backing. Today that has inflated, and a dollar is not necessarily worth an ounce of gold, but it can purchase goods that are of a finite quantity.
In an MMO, gold comes out of thin air. Further if you think about how purchasing works, the items you buy from a vendor are for the most part of unlimited supply. There's nothing of lasting value backing the MMO gold piece. That's important, so I'll say it again.
There's nothing of lasting value backing the MMO gold piece.
The only money sink that epic geared players face is their own repair costs, and deposit fees on the auction house.
Even in the real world, where real inflation occurs at a rate of about 3% per year (fluctating), folks with a lot of money rarely keep it in a liquid form. To do so would be financially unsound, why would you want to lose 3% of your money ever year? So they invest in some way or another. This is also possible in an MMO, and the only real protection wealthy players have. Rather than carry around 1000 gold pieces, buy a stack of righteous orbs, and put them in a bank slot. If everything doubles in price, you're still fine, and folks will still be using the orbs for enchants and paying for them what the market will bare.
Forcing average players to buy gold in order to keep up? Only unsavvy players. Inflation actually makes the game easier for those that understand the market. Player tradeskills finds (herbs minerals and skins) and random item drops are going to sell for what they are going to sell for. As long as a player is finding and selling more than they are buying off the market, they will make money, and if inflation is in place, they will make more money. All that will happen is that set price items like mounts and repair costs will become cheaper and smaller obstacles, and players will be encouraged to use their gold since hoarding it would be a financially unwise move.
The mistake often made is that a player insists they must have items that are beyond their means, they must have every good epic or rare for their class and level that can be bought from the auction house, they must level a production trade skill to the max as soon as level permits. This creates a huge trade deficit, they are buying all these items and materials, but what are they putting into the economy? Nothing, they're going to IGE and paying someone else to do that.
When does everyone buy stuff? Especially console game systems, whose market is primarily (though not entirely) those too young to effectively purchase it without outside (parental) fiscal support?
That's right. It's not that confusing. They're delaying to ride the wave that is Christmas. That's when they'll sell the most units, might as well use the time between to tweak the system.
Yep, that kinda sounds like Diablo. Did that (twice even), made a lot of money, moved on to cover another genre.
Re:A creature evolves and then forms a relgion!
on
Spore Is EA's New Ace
·
· Score: 1
So this is unconfirmed, but I heard that you actually can develop civilization under the waves instead of evolving to a land creature. Much like land civs can create "bubble cities" under water, your water civ would be able to create "aquarium cities" on the land.
All this finger pointing revolves around a natural phenomenon called mudflation. More currency enters the market than leaves it, so prices rise. If someone is buying goods and reselling them 4x higher, and they are actually selling, he's not ripping off the system, he's selling at market value. There are deposits in place that hurt the seller for posting items that aren't selling. A lot of times it's one player recognizing a price rise that should have occured but hasn't, that can make a ton of money.
Chinese farmers don't drive prices up. An economy based on going out and looting walking treasure boxes (prefaced by a trivial combat scene) resulting in an infinite currency system drives prices up.
This was precisely the comment I came hear to read - I loved Planescape Torment.
But they need to take it outside of D&D - so that they don't get caught up with Wizards of the Coast and all the d20 nonsense - and instead use a more free form system. I know that's a big plunge, but if anyone can do it successfully, I'd lay my investment in the hands of the company that brought Sigil to life!
Slashdot Mirror
You know? You're right. Anyone with 2 pennies worth of common sense can see that if you are installing a mod that's gonna add nudity to a game, then any offense is of your creation. The game is a tool, a means to an end, and if you outlaw games that could create nudity, you might as well scratch crayons, paintbrushes, hell even ascii could be used to create nudity
t ml )
( http://www.chris.com/ASCII/art/html/nakedladies.h
.
Lock those kids up in a closet where they'll never see a breast, because that's what's best for them, right?
Jack's out for attention, and that's all - a head can't anatomically be shoved that far up someone's ass.
(I'll take the - to karma, it had to be said)
They actually tried that whole stop selling subscriptions until we fix the servers thing when the game first came out.
But seriously, I'm not one to tell them how to fix the problem - true, but I do know things have not gotten better in the last year, they've tumbled worse. And when it comes down to it, they don't pay me to fix their computers, or even understand them. I pay them for a service they aren't delivering. That's the most aggrevating thing a company can do. It would be different if Blizzard would own up and institute a policy of "server's down, free day for all associated accounts". Which they do do sometimes. But not all the time, it's very inconsistent.
An interesting idea, but to each their own. Email's great when you don't need an immediate response, or when you know someone is in their office. Not so good when you are trying to track someone down for a question, but that's what cell phones are for, right?
Me personally I try to at least respond to an email asap, but I may not fill the person's request immediately. But everyone has their own service level standards, based on who your customer is and how many responsibilities you have. I think a good twist on your idea would be some kind of autoresponse, not in the form of email necessarily, that would allow you to set the expectations on a response to the email back to the sender, sort of like you can share your calendar in outlook. Something like the profile, but more simple, that indicates when you have access to email, or intend to respond to emails. I'm not exactly sure what form it would take, but that's why they pay the engineers the big bucks.
And wrist muscle too! Which is really most of table tennis too, but that gets world wide recognition...
And don't diss the hand muscle! That's the same one that opens the mayonaise/jelly/soda bottle when your wife can't - granting instant "my hero" points.
I buy my computers piece wise anyways. It's the best way to go if you know what you are looking for, and assembly is just a pasttime hobby of mine.
This will make it just slightly harder for businesses to use illegit copies of Windows (Which is what this all really boils down to) - the armchair software pirate will continue to rip off Microsoft, because their DRM is no more robust than the OS it was meant to protect.
I'm glad they are taking Microsoft to court. Because in all likelihood, Microsoft is going to hire the best lawyers there are, and kick the crapola out of Lucent. And then we'll have one more strike against companies generating these bogusly broad patents on technology.
So:
Paying for X-box = Paying for PC.
Paying for X-box live = Paying for ISP.
Paying for additional content is kind of a new concept. Rather than charging an ambiguous 15/month for new content, they let the end user pick and choose what mods are worth what, by choosing their own downloads. I think this is a pretty cool idea, a shame it wouldn't really work out in the MMO world so much since everyone has to be playing the same game, where in a single player game it's ok for everyone to play something different.
I do kind of think $2.50 is steep for a particular armor model, but then again I look at the suggestion boards for a game like world of warcraft, where thousands of suggestions hit a board and most don't get implemented, maybe by creating a more capitalistic system, there will be a better balance between content demand and supply.
Thousands of auto accidents every day just waiting to turn into lawsuits against the carmageddon series!
Speeding ticket? "But sir, I was obsessed with Need for Speed!"
Caught in an act of terrorism? "I was just acting out something I'd seen in counter-strike!"
The judge in this case needs to slap a humongous "don't waste my time" court cost to these plantiffs, and to the lawyer that filed the case, and kick it out of court.
From the article:
The Washington Post reported that the online porn business was worth $2.5bn a year, compared with just $1.1bn for music downloads.
There is a 2.5 billion dollar industry for assisted masturbation.
I'd say the effect on society is more people getting off. That's less wound up lunatics out there killing people because lets face it, no matter how bad your day, would you ever even consider killing someone after an orgasm?
Pr0n = less violence. We could use a lot more really...
Quoth the article - he did set up a website from which he does sell his guide.
I'm not promoting copyright infringement or anything here, but unless this guide included ways to exploit the game (that is, take advantage of bugs and such unfairly), Blizzard should have better things to do. They are always about how they need more time to set up servers, that they don't have the resources to run live events, and yet obviously they have people on their payroll doing nothing more than running around squashing a guy trying to make a buck or two. Glad to see where that 15/month from all the players is going to.
I might watch this, for the same reason I'd watch an auto race. Not for the game, not for the sport. I just want to see the crashes. Looking at the history of the elder scrolls series, I don't think I'd have to wait 12 hours...
I look at this kind of like I do Google News, which you can route to your Google homepage. It's a mock up. A first run. I don't expect it to be perfect. I tried google news for a while, and found the stories there weren't as interesting as what was feeding through CNN and slashdot. I turned it off. But given some time, maybe they will turn it around. I'm sure they didn't start out the top search engine either, but experience and persistence work wonders.
//end rant
The only thing from Google I didn't like was their toolbar - and I specifically didn't like it because I found it was autopackaged into certain softwares as an opt out instead of an opt in. Meaning the default option was to install the toolbar, and the user had to take special measures not to install a potentially browser wrecking software.
I prefer my software like a salad bar - where I get to choose what goes on the plate, rather than someone else deciding a piece of lemon would make the dish look better.
But I digress. Grats to Google for entering a new market, I look forward to seeing what innovations they might bring!
I can't see blaming google for this. They collect the information they said they collect. If there's something criminal in one's emails, google has a right to protect itself by saving the proof rather than be acused of being an accomplice to the crime by helping delete it.
I like this idea, but a couple improvements:
Death is bleh in WoW. You just run back and get your corpse.
Rather, give the big nasty about 1 million hit points, a 0 damage attack, and a special that breaks a random piece of armor or weapon. Let the bot sit there and fight it until all his weapons break, at which point he can haplessly level his unarmed skill to 300.
As long as the in game advertising is on the side of destructable buildings, I'm all for it.
Take that, Wal-Mart!
KAPOW!
Sorry to say, but you've already lost all that time and money, you just no longer have control of a little virtual Lancelot/Illidan/Jackie Chan in a virtual world.
There is the good side of what you say - in being able to join any server you'll always have a place to play. There's the downside too - there's nothing to discourage griefers from showing up on a server, running aim-bots or other cheats, getting banned and shrugging it off just to go to another server.
This is why you got banned:
"At the time of the ban I had configured my keyboard to switch weapons, cast hex of weakness and renew myself, all with the press of a button."
There exists a global cooldown of one second between most gameplay affecting actions in WoW, most certainly for casting these two spells hex of weakness and renew.
Therefore the only way you could have cast both with one button, is if the keyboard is interjecting a wait period, and issueing a keystroke to the game that you are not pressing after this wait period. Now in this case, that keystroke may only be a second after you pushed the button. But the issue is that you have, at this point, just barely crossed the line into botting. It has to be drawn somewhere, and to me this is where it makes the most sense: If you allow the keyboard to issue commands while you are not interacting with the hardware in anyway, you are botting.
Not saying this to be an ass, just to let you know what most likely Blizzard took issue with.
Ehh - a couple of counterpoints on this:
Rather than saying we're inflating time, which is kind of silly, let's say we're increasing the amount of currency faster than intended, or inflation of currency is taking place faster than intended. Now, having said that, what is intended? I didn't see anywhere Blizzard set out an intended inflation rate. Inflation is expected, but there's no Greenspan guy behind the scenes trying to curtail it I don't believe.
There is infinite money in an MMORPG. There is finite money in the real world. Once upon a time, 1 US dollar equated to 1 oz of gold. That's called backing. Today that has inflated, and a dollar is not necessarily worth an ounce of gold, but it can purchase goods that are of a finite quantity.
In an MMO, gold comes out of thin air. Further if you think about how purchasing works, the items you buy from a vendor are for the most part of unlimited supply. There's nothing of lasting value backing the MMO gold piece. That's important, so I'll say it again.
There's nothing of lasting value backing the MMO gold piece.
The only money sink that epic geared players face is their own repair costs, and deposit fees on the auction house.
Even in the real world, where real inflation occurs at a rate of about 3% per year (fluctating), folks with a lot of money rarely keep it in a liquid form. To do so would be financially unsound, why would you want to lose 3% of your money ever year? So they invest in some way or another. This is also possible in an MMO, and the only real protection wealthy players have. Rather than carry around 1000 gold pieces, buy a stack of righteous orbs, and put them in a bank slot. If everything doubles in price, you're still fine, and folks will still be using the orbs for enchants and paying for them what the market will bare.
Forcing average players to buy gold in order to keep up? Only unsavvy players. Inflation actually makes the game easier for those that understand the market. Player tradeskills finds (herbs minerals and skins) and random item drops are going to sell for what they are going to sell for. As long as a player is finding and selling more than they are buying off the market, they will make money, and if inflation is in place, they will make more money. All that will happen is that set price items like mounts and repair costs will become cheaper and smaller obstacles, and players will be encouraged to use their gold since hoarding it would be a financially unwise move.
The mistake often made is that a player insists they must have items that are beyond their means, they must have every good epic or rare for their class and level that can be bought from the auction house, they must level a production trade skill to the max as soon as level permits. This creates a huge trade deficit, they are buying all these items and materials, but what are they putting into the economy? Nothing, they're going to IGE and paying someone else to do that.
When does everyone buy stuff? Especially console game systems, whose market is primarily (though not entirely) those too young to effectively purchase it without outside (parental) fiscal support?
That's right. It's not that confusing. They're delaying to ride the wave that is Christmas. That's when they'll sell the most units, might as well use the time between to tweak the system.
Yep, that kinda sounds like Diablo. Did that (twice even), made a lot of money, moved on to cover another genre.
So this is unconfirmed, but I heard that you actually can develop civilization under the waves instead of evolving to a land creature. Much like land civs can create "bubble cities" under water, your water civ would be able to create "aquarium cities" on the land.
All this finger pointing revolves around a natural phenomenon called mudflation. More currency enters the market than leaves it, so prices rise. If someone is buying goods and reselling them 4x higher, and they are actually selling, he's not ripping off the system, he's selling at market value. There are deposits in place that hurt the seller for posting items that aren't selling. A lot of times it's one player recognizing a price rise that should have occured but hasn't, that can make a ton of money.
Chinese farmers don't drive prices up. An economy based on going out and looting walking treasure boxes (prefaced by a trivial combat scene) resulting in an infinite currency system drives prices up.
This was precisely the comment I came hear to read - I loved Planescape Torment.
But they need to take it outside of D&D - so that they don't get caught up with Wizards of the Coast and all the d20 nonsense - and instead use a more free form system. I know that's a big plunge, but if anyone can do it successfully, I'd lay my investment in the hands of the company that brought Sigil to life!
I read the article description and came away with Tank, Healer, DPS...
Consoles are overrated...
ROFL...L...L...L... mmalove has been disconnected.
Damn lag...